


sin and error

by carolinaa



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Coping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e11 Holy Night, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Leo McGarry is a Dad, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 11:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18893335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinaa/pseuds/carolinaa
Summary: Josh would kill to have a living father, Toby reminds himself.It’s what he’s been repeating to himself over and over for the better part of an hour, the whole taxi ride home and up into his apartment and he’s not sure when he’s going to stop, but his jaw still tightens every time he feels his dad looking at him, so. Not yet.





	sin and error

**Author's Note:**

> i don't hate josh i actually LOVE him. but inviting someone's estranged dad for the holidays without permission is like.... yikes dude come on. like it turned out "fine" but this fic asks the question : what if it hadn't

Josh would kill to have a living father, Toby reminds himself.

It’s what he’s been repeating to himself over and over for the better part of an hour, the whole taxi ride home and up into his apartment and he’s not sure when he’s going to stop, but his jaw still tightens every time he feels his dad looking at him, so. Not yet.

“You can have the couch,” he says, and gestures vaguely, and then locks himself in the bathroom to get a physical barrier between the two of them. It’s the first time he’s been able to unclench his jaw for four hours.

He knows Josh did this because Josh is a _fixer_ and because Josh has some pretty major baggage and because Josh wants Toby to not be so horrifically lonely all the time, but this. This situation isn’t fixing anything, especially not the writer’s block Toby is currently facing, certainly not the progress Toby has made in regards to Actually Feeling Emotions.

Toby moves from the bathroom to his bedroom, and doesn’t let himself look over his shoulder to the living room on his way. He _doesn’t_ walk a little faster than normal, like he thinks someone’s coming after him. He’s not thirteen.

If he had any sort of normal emotional intelligence, maybe he could have gotten Josh to understand. Maybe he could have told Josh “my dad used to kill people for a living and I grew up thinking I was going to be next.” Josh would have respected that more than Toby’s non-committal bullshit. Maybe.

Should he leave his dad out there by himself? Is Toby supposed to keep an eye on him? Should Toby call the fucking police?

Toby locks his bedroom door and goes to bed.

 

“Wow, someone looks tired.”

Toby glances up from his morning briefing and sees CJ in his doorway. “This--this is just my face.”

“Fair enough,” CJ says. She smiles. She’s in a good mood, it seems. “Was your holiday that much of a bummer?”

“Well, it’s not really my thing, so.” Toby gives a grim smile. She knew that already.

CJ invites herself in and sits down on the couch. “How’s your dad?”

Toby puts his briefing down and clears his throat. “Uh. Yeah, um. He’s, uh, yeah. Did Josh tell you about him?”

CJ nods. “Is he still in town?”

Toby shrugs.

“Okay,” she says, slowly. “Did you not talk to him at all?”

“I try to avoid it.”

“I thought he stayed with you.”

“Josh has a lot to say, doesn’t he? Maybe you should ask him.”

CJ’s smile dims a little bit. “Alright. I will. And I’ll come back when you’re in a better mood to talk about Ashford and his subsidy thing.”

“Sure thing,” Toby says, his tone as hard as he can make it, and goes back to his briefing.

 

Toby is nowhere near having the capacity to know what he’s feeling. He thinks if he were someone else, he would probably be feeling something, but since he’s _him_ , the jury’s still out. He just feels weirdly full, like his body is full up to the ears with something, and he can’t figure it out. He doesn’t want to, either, it’s just disconcerting. His head hurts.

“Do you need anything else?” Ginger calls.

“No. Have a good night,” Toby says, and hears her clatter away. The pool is empty now, it’s just Toby in his dimly-lit office. Will left a while ago to go work on a memo, and it’s finally quiet.

It’s quiet, but Toby keeps glancing up every few seconds, because he thinks his dad is going to walk in again.

Josh doesn’t know that the incident on the first campaign (the one where he had a twenty-minute screaming match in an alley with Leo and then went completely silent for sixteen hours because he was so full of _whatever_ that he didn’t know how to function--that whole experience is the reason Leo’s the only one who has sort of an inkling of Toby maybe having some issues beyond just not liking his dad) was a direct result of just a _phone call_ from his father. He knows if he goes home and “spends time” with his father, he’s going to end up a hell of a lot more messed up this time around.

It hits him that his dad knows where he lives now. Maybe it shouldn’t have taken this long to sink in.

He looks at his computer screen and sees a finished document, which, weird. Writing usually makes him feel _something_.

 

“Is everything okay?”

Toby laughs. Well, he gets close enough, at least, for him; he feels his eyes crinkle up at the corners, he breathes out of his nose faster than usual. He waves a hand casually. “Yeah, I’m just--I gotta get this done, okay?”

He has nothing to be getting done, and both he and Leo know it.

How bad must he look for someone to notice something’s up with him, he wonders. Maybe it was the hand gesture, that probably wasn’t normal for him.

“How’s your holiday going?” Leo asks.

Toby doesn’t know if Leo’s just run into a patch of free time or if Leo’s trying to take a more gentle route to interrogation than he normally does. Toby must really look bad. The couch in his office does no favors for his back, really, and he kept jolting awake to check that his office door was still closed.

“Fine,” Toby says. “Josh invited my dad over for the holidays.”

Leo raises his eyebrows at this. Maybe is enough for him to know that Toby’s behavior is going to be wildly unpredictable within the next few days, if previous incidents are any indication. “Did he ask you first?”

“You know, funny thing is, he didn’t,” Toby says, not looking up from where he’s nonsense-shuffling papers on his desk. He wishes Leo would go back to his office. “Happy New Year, though.”

“You too.” Leo sounds more pensive than he did before, if possible. He hesitates, then starts to move away, then stops again. “Let me know if you need anything, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Toby mumbles. He still doesn’t look up. Leo walks away.

 

He has to go home that evening, because he can’t wear the same clothes three days in a row. He passes Josh on the way out, even though he doesn’t want to (even though he took a few steps to try and avoid Josh on the way out). Josh looks up at him and smiles, expectant.

Josh wants Toby to have repaired his relationship with his dad, and to have had a great holiday, and to be eternally grateful to Josh. Josh also wants a healthy father-son relationship, and to function in loud environments, and to keep his friends close to him.

Toby gives him the fakest smile he can muster.

He says “Great” to Josh’s “How’s your dad?”

He says “Thanks so much for thinking of me” to Josh’s “I’m so glad it worked out.”

He thinks--hopes--Josh knows him well enough to know that Toby’s full of shit (Toby doesn’t make a habit of gushing), but Toby escapes the conversation without a hitch (the holiday season is hard for Josh, Toby should probably cut him some slack), and he’s out on the sidewalk in the cold before he knows it, checking over his shoulder intermittently because paranoia has started to follow him like the stormcloud CJ says he carries with him.

“Tobias,” his dad starts as soon as he opens the door.

“Goodnight,” Toby says, rushed, and locks himself in his room again, hating that his heart is pounding in his chest.

 

His dad finally corners him when Toby’s just trying to put some damn cream cheese on a bagel so he can go to work. He turns to put the knife in the sink and his _dad’s_ there, and it takes everything in his being not to startle back like he’s sixteen.

“I’m heading home today,” his dad says.

“Okay,” Toby says back. _Stay gone,_ he wants to say.

“Nice place you have here. I’ll have to come more often.”

Toby needs to get to work.

“Right?”

Toby nods, staring into middle distance and not at his dad.

“Toby,” Julie says, and shifts his balance, and Toby is suddenly vividly certain that his father is packing a gun, despite no evidence to confirm that. He freezes, eyes darting to the exit, mind calculating how fast he can run there, how many hits he’ll take before he escapes.

“Okay, sure,” Toby forces out, hardly audible. He’s an adult man and he could call the police to take his dad away but he’s still full of an electric feeling. This one he recognizes--fear.

“If you’re just going to mumble, nobody wants to hear that shit,” his dad says, sharp, like he always does, and Toby all of a sudden remembers hearing that thousands of times, some times more forcefully than others.

Julie lowers his voice to a more conversational level. “You probably need to get to work.”

Toby nods, pushes by. His dad says something else, but Toby slings his bag over his shoulder with unsteady hands and keeps walking, unhearing, just trying to move as fast as he can.

He realizes as he climbs the steps to the White House that he forgot his bagel on the counter. The thought of his dad eating it makes him want to scream, for some reason, but he just keeps his head down through security and pushes that thought away.

 

Toby doesn’t talk much that morning. He’s usually able to ignore his own muttering, letting others strain to hear instead of making a concerted effort to be audible, but even after the adrenaline of the kitchen encounter wears off, Toby keeps his mouth shut. He’s gone so long without remembering long stretches of his childhood, and now he can’t put a lid on it long enough to write a statement on the latest earthquake.

He sits, stoic, through the senior advisor meeting--Josh and the President get into it, tempers flaring, so not much attention gets thrown Toby’s way (except maybe Leo gives him a couple too many glances). He sends a memo to his one meeting that he’s had an unexpected conflict and Ginger reschedules for him, seemingly relieved that he’s not shouting at her for once.

His head hurts. He takes an Aspirin and then another, and stares at his keyboard and tries to get himself to do what he’s supposed to be doing.

 

Mid-afternoon, Toby gets called into the Oval. He knows things are going to get ugly if he can’t speak up. On the other hand, he thinks of having to enunciate his words, of clearing his throat and speaking out loud, and wants to throw up.

Maybe he should give Josh’s ATVA guy a call.

He enters the Oval and reminds himself to unclench his sore jaw.

Jed looks up at him from where he’s sitting on one of the sofas and nods to the chair opposite him. “I heard your father came to visit.”

Toby nods. He sits in the chair.

“Did he leave already?”

Toby nods again.

“Shame.” Jed takes his glasses off and puts them down on the coffee table. “I would’ve liked to meet him.”  
At any other time earlier this week, Toby would have maybe laughed at that. Maybe he would have had some retort about how _no,_ Jed definitely doesn’t want to meet him. Now, he just sits there, his jaw tight and his hands clenched in his lap.

Jed watches him for a moment. “Is there something I need to know?” he asks, quieter (so he must remember Toby, silent and staring into nothing after a rally, remembering a heavy belt and not much else. Maybe Leo said something to him about their argument, following Toby’s half of a weirdly docile phone call. Maybe Toby’s just paranoid and this meeting is about something else entirely).

“I have a sore throat,” Toby says, his voice grating and harsh to his ears. It’s a lie that would have worked five minutes ago, maybe. “Strep.”

Jed looks at him, inscrutable. Toby’s gaze hangs somewhere between meeting Jed’s and staring at nothing.

“You contagious?” Jed asks.

Toby shakes his head.

“Okay then. Leo wanted to see you.” Jed seemingly realizes he’s going to get nowhere, gets up and goes back to the desk. Toby nods, mumbles his _thank you Mr. President_ , and crosses to the appropriate door. “And I think honey lemon tea works for that sort of thing,” Jed says, sounding completely unsure about what to say.

“Thanks,” Toby says, and pushes into Leo’s office.

Leo looks up, and looks the diametric opposite of relieved when he sees the look on Toby’s face. “I had to tell him his communications director isn’t talking, Toby,” Leo says. “This isn’t a job where you can keep that a secret.”

Toby shrugs, rubs a hand over his face. “It’s fine,” he says, scraping out the words because it’s better than the alternative.

“This _is_ about your father, right?”

“Is that what you told everyone?”

“I didn’t know if it was true, so no, I didn’t say anything.”

Toby rolls his eyes towards the ceiling, and stutter-steps towards the door before deciding to wait out the conversation. Which turns out to be a mistake.

“Toby, everyone is free to make their own assumptions,” Leo says.

It’s the truth, so Toby shouldn’t get mad about it--Toby already knew that people thought things about him--but he is. He can feel his face heating up. “So--you’re saying that, whatever you said to them--”

“--I didn’t _say_ much of anything, if they wanted to know they’d have to ask you--”

“--Like everyone out there doesn’t already think I’m screwed up because my dad used to _hit_ me?”

The words stop the conversation in its growing momentum, and Toby feels the ceiling crash down around his ears. Even if he tries to play it off, Leo’s probably already figured this out, and that means every single one of his coworkers is going to know by the end of the day.

Toby shouldn’t have opened his damn mouth. Leo’s taken aback, angry, concerned, two seconds from getting out of his chair, going to try and fix this (going to tell Josh so _Josh_ can try to fix this). Toby can’t let that happen.

He looks over his shoulder and sees Jed staring right back at him through the open door. The President has heard him just as clearly as Leo has.

Toby laughs. It’s a tired, unhappy sound; there’s nothing he can do now. He turns away from both Leo and Jed and doesn’t stop moving until he’s in his office with the door shut again.

 

He’s stared at a blank word processing document for two and a half hours without even seeing it before someone knocks on his office door. They open it without waiting for a response, and it’s CJ, trying to look like she isn’t worried.

Toby looks back at his computer, hands completely still on the keyboard.

“Leo said someone that isn’t him should check on you,” CJ says, breaking the silence that’s been heavy in Toby’s office for hours. She sits down on his couch, looks way too much at ease. “Rough week?”

Toby watches his computer cursor fade in and out on the document.

“Not much of a talker today?” CJ asks. She’s sat with him before when he’s been like this, herded him into a side room and away from reporters and held his hand and watched as he shook and shoved feelings away and failed to find words.

His head is aching again. He doesn’t know why he’s so tired, why he feels like someone’s piling queen-size mattresses on top of him, why he wants to try and wrestle his dad’s gun away from him and just see what happens for once.

“This isn’t Josh’s fault,” Toby says, softly enough that he’s sure CJ can’t hear, but she nods anyway. The _ears_ on this woman.

“What isn’t?”

“Why I’m--” Toby shrugs, gestures to himself, “--like this, I guess.”

“So why are you like this?” CJ asks.

“Not Josh,” Toby says.

“Okay,” CJ says. She smiles, an attempt to placate him, not a real actual smile--Toby probably isn’t looking stable enough for him to pull off any sort of humor. “I think you should take a day off.”

Toby’s not even done thinking about the possibility of his dad breaking into his apartment, his dad staking out his front door, before he’s saying, too harshly, “ _No_.”

The problem is, he doesn’t feel anything. He’s acting like he feels something, but he can’t put his finger on it, and he hates it. His hands are shaking, and CJ can see it.

“Okay,” CJ says again, but more cautious than before. “ _We_ think you should take a day off.”

Toby _knows_ what he wants to say. He knows the words he’s supposed to use to say it. He can’t push the fucking _words_ out of his _stupid mouth_ \--he can’t force them out, he doesn’t know WHY

CJ closes the door and lowers her voice. “Toby.”

Toby opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water. _I can never go back to my damn apartment_ , he tries to tell her, but no noise leaves him.

“Do I need to go get someone?” she asks, not understanding what’s going on.

He shakes his head. He breathes in, he breathes out. “I need to get this done,” he says.

CJ takes the hint and leaves, though she looks like she’d rather stay. Toby goes back to staring at his computer, his useless fingers rattling on the keyboard.

 

When he finally grabs his coat and gets his courage up to leave the White House, Andy’s in the lobby waiting for him. Toby gets a look at her and almost decides to go back to his office, but she spots him first and locks eyes with him, and he’s stuck.

“CJ called me,” she says.

“You should be asleep,” he mumbles.

“Yeah, I should be.”

He appreciates the honesty, at least.

She walks him home, first to a taxi, then to his front door. She doesn’t say much, which he appreciates, as his head is buzzing too loudly for him to hear.

Toby opens his front door and sees a light on in the kitchen, and goes completely rigid, his hand stuck on the doorknob and his blood turned to slush. Julie’s supposed to be _gone._

“How violent was he this time?” Andy asks, as if Julie isn’t in the apartment. As if Toby would _ever_ answer a question like that.

Toby watches the edge of the kitchen that he can see, straining to hear if someone’s in there.

Andy’s eyes are on him now, and she speaks like she’s remembering Toby’s weird phobias and paranoias for the first time in a while. “If you didn’t give him a key, he’s not here.”

He forces himself to walk further into the apartment. Nobody’s in the kitchen.

“See?” Andy says, fed up with his shit. Or maybe that’s what her _comforting_ voice always sounded like.

Toby nods. His head aches.

“Have a good night, Toby,” she says. The sound of the door closing still makes him jump.

 

“Leo said you wanted to see me,” Josh says.

Toby’s doing better today--a night of rest will do that for you--and he still doesn’t really know what he’s feeling but he’s better able to hide whatever it is at this point. He _definitely_ doesn’t want to talk to Josh about his childhood, and he wishes everyone would stop talking about him behind his back.

He wishes Leo didn’t have such a paternal impulse. It’s really harshing Toby’s vibe.

“CDC meeting in fifteen,” Toby says, and tosses a folder Josh’s way. “Do it.”

“Okay,” Josh says, even as he fumbles the catch and papers are strewn across the floor. As he scoops them back into a pile, he asks, “Hey, how was your dad’s visit?”

“Great,” Toby says, his voice tight.

“You feeling okay?” Josh is back upright now.

Toby’s sure his face is completely blank as he says, “Strep.”

“You should be at home,” Josh says, confused (or maybe concerned).

“Should I be?” Toby looks up. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem--”

“Forgot again that you know what I need more than I do,” Toby says, and smiles his most annoyed smile.

Josh looks a little nonplussed at Toby’s tone. “What?”

Toby picks up a pen. He smiles again. Josh is never going to find out about the hell Toby’s gone through this holiday season, even if Toby has to die to keep that information on lockdown.  “See you later.”

Josh doesn’t take the hint. Toby’s reminded why he prefers CJ. “Wait, are you _mad_ at me?”

Now that Josh has caught on, it’s going to be a whole discussion if Toby doesn’t escape from the situation. Toby rubs his eyes, takes a deep breath, says, “What do you think? You choose. Please get out of my office.”

“Wait--what did I do?” Josh asks. He sits on the couch, as if he’s welcome. “Is this what Leo meant when he sent me over here?”

“Josh, get out.” Toby points to the door. He tries to take any sort of friendliness off of his face (which would be easier if he could remember what “friendliness” usually looks like on him). “I have a deadline. Get out.”

“Fine! Okay, geez, touchy,” Josh says. He’s legitimately worked up over this. He gets up and heads for the door, finally. “I’ll figure it out,” he says over his shoulder, which Toby tries not to think into too much.

 

CJ comes back. She greets him with a smile, as if she hasn’t betrayed Toby by telling his ex-wife that he’s operating with all the grace of a fish on a skateboard. “Morning,” she says. “Let’s get lunch, okay? I can tell Ginger to schedule something.”

She’s testing the waters. She’s also well aware that Toby skips meals when stress makes his stomach twist up--and she’s right, as he hasn’t eaten in a while.

“Okay,” Toby says. He smiles at her--and it’s a _good_ smile, not the angry one that he usually reserves for Josh--but it feels flat.

“I told Josh to buzz off. I also got this guy’s number for you,” CJ says, and she puts a business card on his desk. He doesn’t have to look to know that it belongs to the ATVA therapist.

“Thanks,” Toby says. He takes a deep breath and tries to smile a little more genuinely.

“Got your back,” CJ says. She gives a small thumbs-up and then heads for the door, calling, “See you at lunch, Toby.”

“Can’t wait,” he says in a monotone because he knows it’ll bother her. He slides the card underneath his keyboard to hide it from any guests. Hopefully, both he and CJ will forget it ever existed.

He’ll get over it.


End file.
